Andela, a company building high-performing engineering teams with Africa’s most talented software developers has appointed Clément Uwajeneza as Country Director for Rwanda.
As Country Director of Andela’s first pan-African hub, Clément will be providing strategic leadership and direction to the Kigali office and will be responsible for its programmatic and operational management.
He joins Andela with an illustrious career in the ICT sector in Rwanda that includes over a decade of experience establishing and leading organizations that have built digital products reaching over one million Rwandans monthly. Clément has actively participated in Rwanda’s digital development agenda through his involvement in initiatives that advance the ICT ecosystem and national ICT policies.
From 2014, Clément was the founding CEO of Irembo, an eGovernment service with over 15,000 daily users. Most recently, Clément served as the Experience Community Lead of umva.ai, an open source initiative to build tools for natural language human-computer interfaces for Kinyarwanda speakers. He continues to remain actively engaged in Rwanda’s tech ecosystem, where he currently serves as the Chairman of the Rwanda Chamber of ICT. Clément holds a Master’s in Computer Science and Management from Polytech Montpellier in France. He also completed the Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education in Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship in Africa program in 2016.
“Clément joins Andela with a strong track record as a business leader and contributor to Rwanda’s ICT sector, as well as an ability to effectively engage a range of stakeholders. This will be essential in driving Andela’s growth in the region. We are very excited to have Clément lead our first pan-African hub,” says Seni Sulyman, Andela’s Vice President of Global Operations.
In July 2018, Andela announced its expansion into Kigali as its fourth African market following Lagos, Nairobi and Kampala. A model of technological excellence on the African continent, Kigali was chosen as a strategic location for Andela’s first pan-African hub due to its strong existing infrastructure and ease of access for developers across the continent.
In August, Andela opened its first intake of applications for aspiring developers in Rwanda and other African countries with the aim of launching its facility by January 2019. In addition, it recently launched the Andela Learning Community (ALC), a network of tech enthusiasts across Africa dedicated to learning how to use technology to solve humanity’s problems, which has built a community of thousands of learners across the continent since its launch four years ago. The ALC facilitates learning through the aid of guided mentorship from learning community ambassadors. The goal is to provide an ever-growing population of aspiring technologists with the resources and environments they need to become world-class problem solvers. The Andela Learning Community in Rwanda will empower learners with technical leadership skills in software development through a three month learning period starting on October 9, 2018.
Andela launched operations in Nigeria in 2014 to help global companies overcome the severe shortage of skilled software developers and invest in Africa’s top technical minds. Since then, the company has hired and developed more than 700 software engineers across the continent who collectively help power the technology teams of more than 150 global companies, including Viacom, Pluralsight and GitHub, while setting new standards for engineering culture. In 2018, Andela earned Best Place to Work awards for both its Lagos and Nairobi offices in recognition of its company-wide focus on diversity and inclusion, stellar office culture, dynamic working environment, and opportunities for career advancement.
“We have been aiming at creating employment for highly skilled technology practitioners within the Rwanda tech-ecosystem and Andela has figured out how to do this fast and at scale,” says Clément. Our ambition for Rwanda is to develop and employ more than 500 software developers within the next five years. The success of Andela pan-African Hub in Rwanda will considerably contribute to at least 3 key areas of the Rwanda’s economic transformation plan towards a knowledge based economy: exporting knowledge through BPO; becoming an African technology hub; and advancing technology entrepreneurship. It is a great honor and challenge for me to joining and advancing Andela’s mission in Rwanda.”
Interested applicants can apply to join Andela here.
